Romantic Cities of Provence

by Mona Caird

A literature of controversy swells in volume daily: the vexed question as to the spot where Hannibal crossed the Rhone on his way through Spain to Italy having set almost as many professors by the ears as the problem of the exact position of the great Aurelian road, parts of which have been destroyed. The geology and physical geography of the littoral has occupied another set of savants, notably the well-known Lenthéric, who treats with remarkable vividness what would seem a somewhat unpopular theme: the changes in configuration of the land and the works of natural engineering accomplished by the Rhone as it reaches the sea by its many mouths. Amongst all these subjects it was necessary to make a choice; and here Barbara came to the rescue. She wanted to know more about the troubadours. The books we had brought with us had already awakened interest in their romantic songs.

It soon became evident that unless we were prepared to make a serious study of their works we must be satisfied with a general notion of the civilisation which they may be said to have created. Our authorities therefore had to be consulted judiciously and the temptation resisted to saunter down all the alluring bye-ways that they offered. There were so many other doors to open and curtains to raise if we desired to have even a faint idea of the brilliant drama of this extraordinary country.

FAÇADE OF CHURCH, SAINT GILLES.
By Joseph Pennell.

We used to seek some quiet spot in the garden on the Rocher du Dom and read or talk as fancy dictated. Soon we found ourselves in a very labyrinth of story and legend. Veil after veil was lifted and the events of bygone days began to loom out upon the background that was still real and sunlit before our eyes. The lie of the land, the personality of the cities, the part that the castles had played in the romantic story, all rose before us like some bright mirage. The very air seemed full once more of Provençal song and dance: tenso, chanson, rondo, pastorella, descort, ballada; and one could almost hear the twang of lute and ring of voice as the wind swept through the ruined windows, or we caught the hurrying swish and murmur of the Rhone. It was quite an excitement, in turning over the leaves of some old volume to come upon the poems of troubadours whose stories we had smiled or sighed over. For there was almost always something pathetic about these bright figures of wandering minstrels, with their fine dress, courteous manners, ardent temperament, and too often a disillusioned and lonely end, sometimes fighting against the hosts of Saladin, not seldom within the shadows of the cloister.

In thinking of this world of the troubadours, one must give one's thoughts a longish tether and the imagination a touch of the spur, for their journeyings were far and wide over the country, from the mountain regions in the south-eastern districts of France to the farthest west of Languedoc and the Dukedom of Acquitaine. There must stretch before the mind's eye the whole beautiful region, sea-washed along its southern boundaries, watered by splendid rivers, set with cities and ruins whose names ring through the centuries; and away to the north the vision must fade at its edges into sharp peaks, while vaguely beyond, on the verge of the consciousness, must sweep back wave after wave of mountain country, up and up in steeper and wilder masses to the towers and pinnacles of the Alps.

But the real heart and centre of Troubadour-land is Provence, the region east of the Rhone and south of the mountains of Dauphiny. It includes the whole romantic hill-country on the spurs of the Maritime Alps; and all along its shores to the east, the rocks cut clear and red into the blue of that wondrous sea which has sung its soft and ceaseless song through the tumult of all our civilisations and of all our dreams. And beautiful among them has been the dream of Provence!

Much of the romance and beauty is the gift of the troubadours who taught their countrymen—nay, all Europe—to see life with new eyes. For about two hundred years they sang their songs; till they were silenced in the thirteenth century by the Albigensian wars. They were a race of singers and of lovers, for love was the principal theme and the main interest of their lives. Their love-stories were invariably more or less unhappy, for not only were the times disturbed and the dangers many, but the lovers were seldom wise of heart or rich in knowledge of the art of life. And so they were tossed on the sea of this rude age, on the sea of their own wild jealousies and distrusts, and sorrow and disappointment generally marked the end of the romance.